Page 148 of A Second Chance for the Beta

Ella puts her glass down and stands up to sit on my lap. She hardly ever does that, and I relish in this rare moment, tugging her closer. “I love you,” she says with emphasis. “You’re a great man and a fantastic mate, and you’ll be a wonderful father to our child one day.”

“I have no idea how to cope with our future child,” I say. “It will probably hate me for being the most worrying dad ever.”

“Or it will look up to you for being amazing,” she says. “And now,” she climbs off my lap. “I will make dinner, and you can talk to Charlie.”

“You… you will make dinner?” I ask, feeling dreadful already. This woman is the love of my life, clearly, but she can’t cook to save her life.

“Yes, I’m trying a foolproof recipe,” she says, and I don’t have the heart to shoot her optimism down. So, I do as she says and go look for Charlie. I find her near the packhouse in the little garden area behind it. I glance at the tree there that leads directly to her room.

“You are not wrong,” she mutters when she sees me. “I actually climbed down from here sometimes.”

“I know,” I say. “Just promise me you won’t do it again, and we are good.” I pause. “And also, please say you forgive me, and we can move on,” I whisper. “You know how scary Ella can be.”

Charlie laughs. “She really is scary. But also cool!”

It’s cute that she is such a huge fan of hers. “Didn’t you want to meet Gisela?”

“Yes, but she headed home early,” Charlie says. “She forgot to do her homework.” She chuckles. “She is such an airhead sometimes, but she is cool and a great friend.”

I gesture at the sketch block in Charlie’s hands. “So, you are drawing something?”

Charlie nods, showing me the comic she is working on. It’s about two sisters, but it’s obvious that in its core it’s about her and Ella. They can turn into owls at night, and to my surprise one sister has a boyfriend who looks like me. I can’t believe she included me in her comic.

“Say, Uncle Dante…” She pauses. “Silas told me we can meet whenever I want… to talk about Dad. Do you think I should do that?”

“Do you want to?” I ask.

“I do,” she admits. “I want to learn more about Dad, and Silas is the only other family I have. Well, at least the one I know about.”

“I think he is a good guy,” I say. “And it would probably be good to learn more about your vampire heritage.”

“So, you are not going to put up a fight?” she asks, surprised.

I remember what Ella told me and decide to be honest. “I lost my first child,” I tell her. “And my first mate. I know I can be a bit patronizing sometimes, also towards Ella. But that’s my trauma to deal with, not yours or Ella’s.”

“I think I understand,” Charlie starts, but I never get to hear what she understands as a scream tears through the evening. It comes right from the window above us.

“That’s Ella!” I blurt out, forgetting everything else and running back into the packhouse. Charlie is hot on my heels.

Goddess, I hope she is alright!

I make it to our suite in record time, kicking the door open. “Ella!” I yell, following her scent to our storage room.

“Goddess,” Ella grimaces, her whole body trembling, before she jumps me. “Make it go away!”

“Make what go away?” I blink.

She gestures towards a box in the storage room, her face carrying an expression of pure horror. Charlie has caught up with us now and peeks into the storage room with me. I gently set Ella back onto the ground before walking into the room and opening the box carefully, noticing it’s… crawling. It’s so gross I want to puke right next to it. Probably something we took out of the freezer once and forgot here.

Charlie gapes and gags in disgust, hurrying back to Ella.

“It turned alive,” Charlie grimaces.

“I can see that,” I groan.

“Just throw it out,” Ella says. “Oh fuck, we might need to burn down the whole storage room.”

I’m inclined to agree with her but doubt that Liam would approve of us burning down part of the packhouse. “This is the grossest thing ever,” I mutter, trying not to gag while I grab the box. Ella hurries to fetch a plastic bag, and we toss it inside. Then we roam the whole storage room. Anything that looks even remotely alive gets thrown away, including everything in the proximity of potential living ingredients. At the end of this little event, we make it a family project to take the garbage outside and toss it away.